


Weyr Life

by astrokath



Series: Kath's drabbles100 collections [7]
Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 14:27:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1391101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrokath/pseuds/astrokath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eighteen drabbles from the Weyr Life collection, completing my drabbles100 series.</p><p>(These are the ones that don't feature canon characters or events, or a more specific theme.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weyr Life

**Passing**

"Nico, look!"  
  
I slammed my shovel back into the ground, and turned to face my dead-glow brother. What a pest he was! But this time it wasn't a colourful creepy-crawly or the antics of one of the hold's newest puppies that had caught his attention...  
  
I followed his gaze skywards, and for the first time in turns, caught sight of dragons passing by, high above the hold. As we watched, they suddenly plummeted down, and then were flaming, burning away the greenery on the ridge.  
  
Would they stay, to Search? Or were they just passing through?  
  
We ran homewards, hoping.

 

 

 **Dark**  
  
So, none of you are afraid of the dark, are you?   
  
Indrellan, shutter the glows, let's see how the brats cope now.   
  
Still not afraid? No?   
  
I'm impressed. Yes, honest. I am. Because it's true, you know, what they say about these deep, dark passages. Here, the tunnelsnakes grow large, large enough to...  
  
What, traps, you say? Ha! The traps _aren't big enough_ for the snakes _I've_ seen down here. Snakes big enough to eat a small Weyrbrat... _whole._  
  
Yeah, brats just about your size! Ever wondered how one-arm W'reddic lost his arm? Snake took it.  
  
Shh!   
  
What was that?

 

 

 **Colourless**  
  
As the colourless liquid trickled out into the waiting mug, an awed silence descended on the conspirators. This was it. The moment of truth. The last few illicit stills had all failed, producing nothing but a sweet syrupy waste... but this time, Gerribord had hit upon the bright idea of hiding it in a shadowed corner of the hatching grounds, where the warmth of the sands might actually get it fermenting.  
  
Elebek can't actually remember how the quikal tasted, or, indeed, much more of that particular night. But judging by the hangover alone, it must have been _damn_ good booze.

 

 

 

 **Christmas**  
  
He sat silently in the weyrling barracks, trying not to cast envious glances at the other lads, with their new clothes and sweet pastries and letters from home. Or the weyrbred, for whom this _was_ home, and nothing was missing.  
  
He didn't regret being here, _couldn't_ regret Impressing his Fenwith at all! It was only when Fenwith slept, like now, that the loneliness crept in. Homesickness, he supposed.  
  
"Hey, boy."  
  
He looked up, wondering if something _had_ come for him with the tithe train after all.  
  
Saw his parents, his little sister.  
  
  
Oh, this would be the best Turnover ever!

 

 

 **Green**  
  
They say green is an unlucky colour.  I've never thought so, not even back when I was a youngster, bullied by the other craft-brats.  I'm not stupid - if my eyes and hair hadn't given them an excuse, they'd have found something else.  
  
It was a green dragon, Berriath, that Searched me, only hours before the old queen's clutch hatched.  That was lucky, wasn't it?  That was when we found each other, my darling Yaspeth and I.    
  
She doesn't think green is unlucky either.   Nor do any of the boys we've Searched, even the craft-brats.  
  
Green, unlucky?  
  
Not a chance!

 

 

 

 **Sunset**  
  
P'teg can't bear to watch the youngsters. Today, a small group are fixing their leathers; a task that's been beyond P'teg's arthritic hands for turns. Doesn't matter though. Ayvreth's just as old, and doesn't fly much anymore. The air's too cold, and they're both too stiff for aerobatics. P'teg can't remember the last time they flew anywhere, though he remembers the flights of their youth well enough.   
  
Those turns seem more real now than they ever did back then.   
  
Oh, they'll fly away again soon, he doesn't doubt. Off into the sunset, chasing the memories of when they were young.

 

 

 **Black**  
  
Blackness.  
  
If he's honest, E'lek is feeling quite terrified.  
  
He knows - they all know - that some of them may not reappear. He concentrates, picturing green Surith ahead and the Starstones far below. Further back, C'gan and Tagath are doing something similar. He'll be part of _their_ visualisation, him and Villonth. It's like that through the whole wing, everyone trusting in the long familiarity to see them safely through. Fewer pairs are lost this way, except when the whole wing fails to return. Oh, it's rare, but it has been known to happen.  
  
Three long heartbeats.  
  
And the darkness is gone.

 

 

 **First**  
  
Circling high above the weyr, I check the clips attaching the firestone sacks to Fassinth's neck one last time, trying not to think.  
  
 _We go!_  
  
The weyrlingmaster's coordinates in Fassinth's mind are clear, and terrifying.  
  
I cling on to them in the chill darkness, and then we're out into the light again, Fassinth's wings powering upwards as I fumble with the sacks. I hurl one at Y'kall, another at Tr'vellid, and miraculously, my throws are cleanly caught.  They blink out to rejoin their wings on the upper levels, no more prepared for this than Fassinth and I.  
  
We return, safe. 

 

 

 **Fall**  
  
We shield our eyes and stare eastwards into the morning glare, waiting for the light to change.  No cloud, this slowly growing, menacing, almost-twilight.  It has its own cold light, though it screens the sun, giving waiting eyes a moment's ease.  Soon they will be filled with sights of chaos, flame and char, and plummeting death.  
  
High above, the first flame burns, then more.  Only our wingbeats break the silence; not for us the roaring breath, the screams of pain, not yet.  
  
But one wing is never enough, and the onslaught is relentless.  We rise to meet it.    
  
Thread falls.

 

 

 **Snow**  
  
The landscape beneath blue Rowenath's wings lies in silent whiteness.  Fields and Holds are buried in drifts, and the river waters creep stealthily beneath the thick, splintered ice.   Thread will not plague these valleys until spring, when life returns again.  And he must face his duty, his choice of life or death; the endless battle of the Pass.  
  
Life will return, but not green Selmuth - for her, the cold arrived too late.   
  
It is as cold as between, here between clouds and frozen ground.  Between, where they drift, forever lost.  
  
G'mab's heart is frozen, and he dreads the thaw.

 

 

 **He**  
  
S'ron has spent the morning quietly, away from his fellow weyrlings, oiling Yaarath's hide until it holds its bright green gleam even when the sun goes in. She's almost a turn, and though she won't be the first of her clutchmates to rise, it'll be her first time, and S'ron's.   
  
He's feeling rather apprehensive, to be honest. Her clutchmates will chase, maybe some of the older weyrlings, but S'ron is hoping for someone else. B'nisk, a brownrider who probably thinks of S'ron as a weyrling with a crush... if he knows S'ron exists at all.  
  
He's the one S'ron wants.

 

 

 **Thunder**  
  
The thunder finds me in my dreams.  
  
I think it's just a storm at first, until I start to pick out the staccato beats of words, the rumbling, echoing message beneath the clouds. We're too far from any Hold for it to be real, but this is a dream, and I'm not in Igen Weyr any more. I'm in the Hold's drumtower, and the message, the message...  
  
My family is dead. All of them.  
  
Weeping, I wake to thunder, and my dragon's whirling red eyes.  
  
 _There was a message for you while you slept,_ he tells me. _I'm so sorry._

 

 

 **It**  
  
It gets to everyone, eventually: fearful, brave, bronze, green - provided they live long enough to realise it.  The lucky ones do so in weyrlinghood, while they're still young and only responsible for themselves.  A good weyrlingmaster can rebuild the shattered nerves of the young.  
  
Thread.  It gets to most riders then, but not all.  
  
It can wait.  Thread doesn't care.  It's indiscriminate. Unstoppable. For every spore you flame, millions remain.  Just one of them's enough to kill you, maim you, steal your weyrmate, friends, family.  
  
You can't defeat it.  
  
Thread will fall, hungering mindlessly, for the rest of your life.

 

 

 

 **King**  
  
Eight sheaves, four dragons, the Weyrleader, and now... eleven hammers.   
  
Across the table, poor G'bord turned white as snow - E'lek would've bet his last mark that the man held the two matching elevens, and wondered if the man would raise or fold. As the betting resumed, G'bord silently tossed another half-mark into the cirle. Unlucky or not, it was a damn good hand. Unlike E'lek's own, which would need every kind of freakish luck to be worth anything.  
  
Slowly, the dealer placed the fifth card on the table.  
  
Lord Holder.  
  
Well. It seemed E'lek wouldn't be bluffing after all.

 

 

 **Square**  
  
"I _told_ you we shouldn't have come!"  
  
With the carelessness of a man who'd had one drink too many, Y'daz hauled his dancing partner closer, and brazenly kissed him. "So what? Gather's a gather, and we've s'much right to be 'ere as Benden's or Nerat's. Ignore 'em."  
  
S'rick shook his head, and hoped they'd make the next circuit of the dancing square without making too much of a spectacle of themselves. Even drunk, Y'daz danced well, but they still had too many eyes on them, and the taunts of ' _dragonwomen!_ ' were growing louder and more frequent.  
  
"Time we left. C'mon."

 

 

**Last**

Fassinth twists his greying muzzle around, facing downwind, and belches out his first flame of the day.  We're ready for this; we've been ready for the last fifty turns.  The firestone sacks sit easily across his brown neck.  I don't know why they thought firestone duty would be an easy job for us; he can fly as well as ever, but I certainly wouldn't put the same confidence in my own arms.  Hearing my thought, he rumbles a laugh.   
  
Still, we're flying.  Dragonmen MUST fly, when Thread is in the sky.  
  
Just this one last time.  
  
Then we can rest.

 

 

 **Shattered**  
  
His body has been wracked with pain, every waking moment, for as long as I can remember. Even in his dreams it lingers, except when the healers give him fellis, but then both our minds drift.  He knows how much that scares me, and lately, he has refused them.  
  
We bear the pain together, sharing everything, as always.  
  
I listen to his mind, his beating heart, as they slow.   
  
And become still.  
  
What was once effortless, suddenly feels like holding the weight of the world, and I cannot hold onto him.  
  
Impossibly alone, I shatter.  
  
React.  
  
And we are ended.

 

  
  
**Eternity**

  
For the first and only time, I guide us into the coldness and the darkness, all my senses slipping away.  I am alone for only a moment before you rejoin me, and we stay there, motionless, for an unknown while.  
  
I have no more heartbeats to count.  But I still have you, and, with that knowledge, my senses return.  The darkness fades, and I feel your warmth beneath me.   We have no thoughts but each other as we move _beyond_ , beyond life, and into eternity together...recapturing forever that perfect moment of joy when our eyes and souls first met.

 

 


End file.
